


An Ever-Fixed Mark

by PhillyStrega



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: M/M, Sharing Clothes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-11
Updated: 2017-12-11
Packaged: 2019-02-13 09:50:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12981483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhillyStrega/pseuds/PhillyStrega
Summary: His mother sits across from him. She has no food of her own and seems content just to watch him eat with a sly look on her face that Rafael does not like, never has.“So,” his mother says. “Does that boy live with you or just leave his laundry at your apartment?”Rafael chokes on his water.AKA 4 times one of them raided the other's closet and thought they were subtle as fuck about it and one time they super weren't.





	An Ever-Fixed Mark

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Elske](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elske/gifts).



> For stardust-and-serotonin on tumblr (let me know if you have an AO3 and I'll add it here!) The prompt I picked was “Barba and Carisi think they're being totally discreet about their relationship. Plot twist: they're definitely not being nearly as discreet.” I REALLY wanted to write about the dang orange tie and clothes sharing and that prompt totally meshed well with that. Hope you like it! 
> 
> The title is from Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116 because I’m a god damned cliche.
> 
> Thanks to Lammii for her quick beta.

“That tie is really...orange.”

It takes a minute for Sonny to realize Amanda’s talking to him. He’s got his pen in his mouth and he’s aimlessly chewing at the end of it while he double-checks his paperwork. He’s trying to make sure he omitted all of his internal dialogue from his case notes since, according to the lieu, they’re not necessary or even coherent to anyone but him. He reads for another half a page before he finally stops, looks up at Amanda and garbles out a confused noise from around his pen, which earns him a droll glare from his partner.

“Orange,” she repeats. She gestures at his tie and pulls a face as she does. “It’s not a color you usually wear.”

“Definitely for a summer and you’re more of a winter,” Fin says in agreement. 

Sonny’s pen falls out of his mouth. “What?”

“Uh, I’ll second that,” Amanda says, turning towards Fin. “Since when do you know about summers and winters?”

“My mom sold avon products for a hot minute. I let her practice on me,” Fin says, shrugging. 

All Sonny can think of now is a young Fin covered in eye shadow samples and it’s _very_ distracting. Judging from Amanda’s slack-jawed expression she’s currently suffering something similar.

“Look,” Sonny says, snapping out of his temporary daze, “it’s a tie. It matched my suit. I put it on.” He gives them both an exaggerated shrug and hopes they’ll let it go at that. 

“It matches your suit just fine, you’re just too pale for it,” Amanda insists, because of course she isn’t letting it go, Sonny should really know better by now.

“She means white, you’re too white for it," Fin adds. 

“Got it, Fin, thanks,” Sonny drones. He tries not to think about the tie’s rightful owner: his tan hands that can expertly unknot any tie, his sharp eyes that mix and match patterns so effortlessly, the sound silk makes as it slides through his careful fingers. Sonny squirms in his chair and he officially regrets wearing this tie, even if it does match his suit.

Amanda’s gone quiet but she’s still squinting at his tie. Sonny can see the second it clicks in her head. Her eyebrows go up, her eyes widen, and a wicked grin spreads across her face. “Hey, didn’t I see that _exact_ tie on Bar--”

“Gotta go ask Lieu something, be right back,” Sonny says, bursting up out of his chair and making for Liv’s office. He’s tries to make it not so obvious that he’s fleeing the scene, but Amanda’s renewed laughter follows him the whole way across the squad room, so. Sonny’s pretty sure he's failed. 

*

The minute Rafael and Liv get ready to leave the prison, it starts down pouring. Rafael stands in the vestibule, eyes the rain, and thinks about how at least the trip up wasn’t a waste. They’re leaving with vital information on a trafficking ring they’ve been pursuing for some time. It's a case that, if they see it through to court, could get a lot of vulnerable women and girls home and put a lot of bad men in jail. In the wake of today's win, Rafael can live with a little sudden rain. 

Liv joins him in staring at the rain pounding the pavement outside. “I don’t suppose you have an umbrella?” Rafael asks.

“Sure,” Liv chirps. “In my car.”

“Of course.”

Liv pokes at her phone and sighs. “There wasn’t anything about rain today.”

“There’s something comforting about how far we’ve come as a people, yet mother nature continues to surprise us.”

“That was almost poetic.”

“Let’s not get carried away.”

Liv taps her phone against her chin and looks back over her shoulder. “I could ask one of the guards if they have a newspaper…”

“I have a hat in my bag,” Rafael says. “Go ask after the paper for yourself.”

Liv nods and heads further inside. Rafael shakes his head at the dark sky and begins to rustle around in his briefcase for the hat he’d stashed in there this morning, fully intending to return it to its rightful owner. It’s a knit hat in bright blue and white and it probably won’t protect him much from the rain but at least it’ll take the edge off the cold. At least, that’s what Rafael is hoping when he jams the thing on his head, fully aware that he looks ridiculous. Hats don’t really work on him.

“Okay, I have the--what is on your head?”

Liv has a newspaper under her arm and Rafael watches as her surprise slides quickly into amusement.

Rafael sighs. “It’s a hat.”

“Right,” Liv says slowly, eyes still locked on the offending headwear. “I didn’t know you were a hockey fan.”

“Hockey?”

“The Rangers,” Liv says, like that somehow clears things up. 

“What?”

Liv laughs and reaches out to tug at the hat where it comes down over Rafael’s ears. “Your hat, Rafael.” She explains slowly, like she's talking to a child. “It’s a Rangers hat.” 

Rafael can deduce that the Rangers must be a hockey team, but he’s definitely not about to say _that_ out loud. He settles for, “Oh. Right.”

“So,” Liv says. “Hockey.”

Rafael picks something off in the distance to stare at and tries his best to sound bored. “It can be fun. I went to a game last week.” 

That was actually true. Sonny had been beside himself with excitement about the tickets he got from his uncle. Rafael had suggested Sonny would have more fun going to the game with his dad or Tommy but Sonny wouldn’t hear of it. Rafael hadn’t had an awful time. Sonny’s enthusiasm tended to be contagious. He talked a mile a minute the whole game, trying to explain the rules, then ranting about the Rangers defensive depth (or lack thereof), and complaining about how he wants to like this one player but he’s on the Bruins, so he’s unfortunately dead to him. The whole thing was kind of adorable, actually. 

Not that Rafael wants to tell Liv any of this. He and Sonny are trying to maintain some boundaries when it comes to work and their personal life. It’s one thing to disclose that they’re dating to everyone in charge, it’s another thing to hand over ammunition for endless mocking and prying to their coworkers. 

Liv is looking at him with that smug, knowing, face of hers that Rafael is used to seeing her direct at perps. “Do me a favor, Rafa.”

“Sure.” He takes his phone out of his pocket and starts jabbing at his email, more out of need for a distraction than anything else.

“Name one player on the Rangers.”

*

He and Fin had caught up to their suspect in a tight alley. The guy was a nervous sort and definitely strung out on something. Twitchy, high, and holding a gun: never a winning combo. Sonny had been closest to the flailing asshole when he’d started shooting, so he took the guy down--and earned himself a broken wrist and a mild concussion. The twitchy perv went to jail and Sonny went to the hospital, where he’s been ever since.

Sonny moves his arm up and down a couple times, trying to get used to the added weight of the cast on his wrist. It does not feel great. But the doctors gave him some decent painkillers and all things considered, a broken wrist and a busted head isn't too bad, probably. Now if only the gatekeepers in lab coats would let him go home, already. 

As if on cue Amanda marches into his hospital room and gives him some half hearted jazz hands. “I’m here to bust you out.”

"Does it count as busting me out if the doctors said it was okay?"

"Do you honestly care?" 

"Not even a little."

“How you feeling?” Amanda cocks her head to the side and winces sympathetically at him. “You look okay.”

“It’s really not that bad,” Sonny insists. He shoves his feet into his shoes, stands up－and almost immediately has to sit back down again as the room tilts underneath him. “Might need a minute, though.”

“Uh huh,” Amanda drones. She sits down in the visitor’s chair across from him and makes herself comfortable, kicking her feet up onto his hospital bed to reassure him that she’s in no rush. “That’s not what you were wearing last time I saw you.”

“I scraped my fool head open when I took the perp down, bled all over my suit.” Rafael had brought him a change of clothes before he had to leave the hospital to go to court. He’d made some noise about having someone else take care of his pre-trial motions and Sonny had quickly squashed that idea. He really does feel fine, temporary dizzy spell aside, and Rafael will be home right after he’s done with pre-trial motions to grumpily fuss over him. 

“Didn’t take you for the theater merch type.”

“What?” Sonny hopes his brain isn’t more rattled than he thought. 

“Your shirt."

Sonny looks down at the shirt. He hadn’t really been paying attention to it when he’d put it on. It was comfortable, and warm, and wasn’t covered in blood, and that was all Sonny cared about at the time. Now he recognizes the dark shirt with script on it saying “immigrants, we get the job done” as belonging to Rafael. 

“Oh, ah, right,” he mutters. God, he doesn’t even know what show this is from. Rafael hops from official broadway soundtrack to official broadway soundtrack and Sonny listens when he talks about which production he loves now, Sonny swears he does, but he has no idea which one this is. “Sorry, guess I’m more loopy than I thought.”

Amanda looks sympathetic then and it almost makes Sonny feel bad about using his head injury to distract her from the fact that he’s wearing Rafael’s sweatshirt. But he also knows that he barely got out of the tie incident and that if his coworkers ever catch him wearing Rafael’s clothes, Sonny will never hear the end of it. 

“You ready to go now?” 

“Yeah,” Sonny says, laughing. “Take two. Let’s. Do the standing. Thing.” He moves slowly, having learned his lesson, and waits before standing up totally straight. He gives standing in place a moment and when he doesn’t feel dizzy or like he’s about to fall down again he gives Amanda a thumbs up.

“Good job, buddy,” Amanda says, only lightly mocking him. 

“I’m injured, you have to be nice to me,” Sonny says with an exaggerated pout. 

“That is not a rule,” Amanda says, but she stays by his side as he shuffles slowly out of the room, just in case he needs someone to hang on to. 

It’s a slow and annoying walk out of the hospital to Amanda’s waiting squad car. Pretty thankful to be sitting down again, Sonny leans back in the passenger seat and closes his eyes as Amanda gets in the car. She fiddles around with the radio for a second before Sonny feels them pull out into traffic. 

“You need me to make any stops before your place?”

“Nah,” Sonny says, flapping a hand at her. “Raf will be home soon enough.”

Amanda tips her head to the side and Sonny realizes his mistake five seconds too late. “I didn’t realize you guys moved in together.”

“I didn’t mention that?”

“No,” Amanda says accusingly. 

Sonny grimaces and gives Amanda his best sheepish face. “Oops?”

“Uh huh.” She shakes her head at him and turns on the radio, effectively ending the conversation. Sonny doesn’t recognize the music but it’s fine, quiet enough, and clearly from a movie or some play that’s pretty good, at least from what Sonny’s limited knowledge of musicals can tell. 

“Liking the music?”

“Yeah, what is it?”

Amanda smirks. “It’s from the same show as _your_ sweatshirt,” she says, taking her hands off the wheel so she can direct extra-sarcastic air quotes at him.

“Damn it,” Sonny sighs. He's too sore to even try and come up with another excuse.

“I _knew_ that wasn’t your shirt,” Amanda crows--quietly, he is concussed after all.

“Okay, if I let you help me up into the apartment and pretend you aren’t poking around for a little while can we forget this ever happened?” Sonny proposes. 

“Deal,” Amanda sing-songs. 

*

“I can pay someone to do this for you, you know,” Rafael says for the sixth time since his mother called him and requested his help painting her living room. 

“Waste of money, I won’t hear of it,” his mother says, waving her hand in his face. “Besides, you used to love this. Remember when we painted your abuela’s apartment--”

“I was seven,” Rafael says. “It was much easier to trick me into thinking chores were fun at that age.”

His mother plants her hands on her hips and gives up any pretense that this will be enjoyable for Rafael. “The longer you complain, the longer it will take,” she says, carefully annunciating every word in that way that used to send his teenage self into a panic and still makes him tense up a bit. 

“Okay, Mami,” he says and sighs before applying himself to the task of taping off the baseboards. 

Rafael manages to get the first coat done before he opens his big mouth again. “I just don’t understand why, suddenly, painting the living room was a thing that needed to happen as soon as possible.”

“I needed a change,” his mother says, nose in the air. 

“Uh huh,” he drones.

“And I hadn’t seen you in a while.”

Rafael shakes his head. “You can get me to come over without putting me to work, you know.”

“You’re so busy,” she says with a high sigh and Rafael readies himself for maternal guilt trip, workaholic edition. He’s surprised when it doesn’t come, and even more surprised when she simply squints at him and says, “That’s not your shirt.”

“What?”

“Unless you decided to change careers and didn’t tell me,” she says in a tone that is half joking and half ‘you never tell me anything anymore.’ 

“No, still a lawyer, still with the DA’s office,” Rafael reports dutifully. 

“Here, take a break, let that dry,” she says, pushing him towards the kitchen and the alcove just off of it that houses a small table and chairs. “I’ll make you a sandwich.”

“Okay,” he says, and obeys, because that’s really all one can do in this situation. 

“You borrowed someone else’s shirt to paint in?” she asks when she delivers his sandwich. 

“Not on purpose,” he says honestly. He hadn’t been paying attention when he got dressed this morning. He just knew he needed a t-shirt and a pair of old pants if he was going to be working around wet paint. He’d grabbed the first appropriate thing he found in the dresser...and possibly forgot that not all of the dresser’s contents were his property anymore.

His mother sits across from him. She has no food of her own and seems content just to watch him eat with a sly look on her face that Rafael does not like, never has. 

“So,” his mother says. “Does that boy live with you or just leave his laundry at your apartment?”

Rafael chokes a little on his water and glares at his mother. She probably timed her comment for the second he was taking a sip from his glass, knowing her. “I thought we weren’t discussing this,” he says loftily. The last time he tried to update his mother on his relationship with Sonny she hastily changed the subject to Rafael’s many straight and fecund cousins. 

“It was just a question,” she says, examining her manicure instead of looking at Rafael. 

“I think we _both_ know better than that,” Rafael says, arching an eyebrow at her. He didn’t just meet his mother, her tactics are old and familiar to him. 

“Well, you showed up here in his shirt.”

No stranger to melodrama himself, Rafael looks towards the ceiling, the very picture of _god give me strength_. “I wasn’t paying attention when I was getting dressed this morning,” he explains again, in his best stern courtroom voice. 

“Okay, Rafi,” she says, holding her hands up in surrender. She lets him eat for a few seconds in peace before she says, “You will tell me if you marry that boy though, won’t you? Or will I find out when your Harvard alumni newsletter gets sent to my apartment by mistake again--”

“I think the first coat is dry enough,” Rafael says and quickly stands up to get back to work painting. He looks down at the navy blue NYPD t-shirt he's wearing and scowls. He really needs to invest in separate hampers for the two of them, or something.

*

Sonny prides himself on being fairly organized. Sure, he can be a bit of a klutz, and some clutter is kind of unavoidable when you're dealing with the amount of paperwork police work involves. But he has his system for organizing himself and his work and it usually turns out just fine. 

Today, though, today is some kind of day. Sonny’s not sure if god’s trying to teach him some patience or it’s a full moon or who knows what, but something hinky is going on. So far today he’s misplaced the same file three times, stepped into an ankle-deep puddle, and collided with the desk sergeant and his jelly donut. A combo of the second and the third are why Sonny’s wearing the backup suit he usually keeps in his locker for OT emergencies.

“You look a mess,” Amanda says, both sympathetic and brutal, as is her way. 

“I think someone put the malocchio on me, I swear to god,” Sonny grumbles and promptly snaps his pencil in half. He holds the two pieces of the broken pencil up at Amanda like it’s proof. “See?”

“Maybe use a pen,” Amanda suggests. 

“It’ll just explode.”

“It will not,” she says, laughing. “And don’t start with the ‘evil eye’ thing again.”

“People used to pay my aunt Concetta to remove it,” Sonny says. “She’d do this thing with some olive oil in holy water and, poof, cured.”

“That sounds like your aunt was running a con,” Fin says.

“What? No. Come on.” Sonny thinks about it for a second and then his shoulders slump. “Shit.”

Amanda cackles and Fin just shakes his head like he’s seen this a thousand times before. Sonny wouldn't be terribly surprised if it turned out Fin took out some underground network of scamming grandmas back in the day.

“Laugh it up, why not,” Sonny says, flailing his arms up in surrender to the universe. He spins in his chair and spots Rafael approaching from the elevators. “You guys call in reinforcements to mock me?”

“What?” Rafael frowns at him and then looks over at the still laughing Amanda. “I won’t ask.”

“Best you don’t,” Sonny says and glares at Amanda until she slowly quiets, still grinning like a damn fool. Sonny looks back at Rafael. “What can I do you for, Counselor.”

“What happened to your suit?" Rafael's looking at Sonny’s rumpled back up suit like its mere existence offends him, which it likely does. 

“There was a jelly donut related accident,” Sonny grunts, jaw clenched. 

Rafael’s mouth twitches as he forces down a laugh. “Oh?”

“Come on, don’t you start,” Sonny whines, jabbing a finger at him. “I’ve endured a full day’s worth of humiliation already and it’s not even noon, I don’t need any more.”

“Sorry to disappoint, Detective,” Rafael says. He holds up his left hand and arches an eyebrow at him. “I believe I’m wearing something that belongs to you.”

Sonny feels way too scattered by the day’s numerous tortures to play guessing games right now. “What are you talking about.”

Rafael heaves out a very put-upon sigh and wiggles his fingers. Sonny’s eyes drift to Rafael’s hands--they’re nice hands, though Sonny greatly prefers when they’re rubbing at Sonny’s back or petting at Sonny’s hair and not making some sort of roundabout point. Sonny is just beginning to wonder if he can fake sick and go home when he sees the glint of metal on Rafael’s pinky finger and realizes what he’s wearing. 

Sonny buries his head in his hands and moans. “What.”

Rafael chuckles and slips the ring off of his finger. “You left it on the bathroom sink.”

“So you put it on your pinky?” 

“Only place it fit. You have very slender fingers,” Rafael says and there are any number of things Sonny could say in response to _that_ but none of them are very work appropriate. “I was more worried about losing it--”

“Right, yeah, no, that. Makes sense.” Sonny knows it’s just a ring but his stomach clenches up a bit at the idea. He left it on the freaking sink, what even.

Amanda starts laughing again. “You forgot your _engagement_ ring? You wouldn’t even take that off when you were helping Jesse finger paint.”

“I knew that painting you gave me was too good for a toddler,” Fin accuses and then at least Amanda is distracted, directing very 'sorry-not-sorry' excuses at Fin. 

Sonny rubs at his face with his hands and sighs. He lolls his head from side to side before finally looking up at Rafael. “It’s been a day,” he says, very aware he probably looks a particular brand of pathetic when he says it. 

Rafael makes to move forward, then pauses, seemingly realizing that they’re in the middle of the bullpen. Sonny shrugs at him, very beyond caring anymore. Rafael seems to agree and finally just leans down to kiss Sonny’s temple. 

“It can only go up from here, Detective,” Rafael says softly. 

“Now you’ve really cursed me,” Sonny says, but he smiles up at Rafael.

Rafael rolls his eyes at him before snapping his fingers and then holding out his hand to Sonny. Sonny’s smile widens and he obliges, sliding his left hand into Rafael’s. Rafael slides the ring onto Sonny’s finger, nodding his approval as it settles back into its proper place. He squeezes Sonny’s hand before releasing him. “Just get through the rest of your shift. I’ll pick up something for dinner and have it waiting.”

“We were supposed to go to your mom’s,” Sonny reminds him.

“I’m giving you a pass tonight,” Rafael says. 

“I love you,” Sonny blurts out before he can remember why maybe he shouldn’t, not here. 

Rafael just looks affectionately exasperated with Sonny’s existence which isn’t a very unusual look on Rafael. “I have to talk to Liv,” he says in lieu of any real good bye, but he gives Sonny a warm look and drifts his fingers along Sonny’s back as he walks away. 

Sonny watches Rafael leave and when he turns back he’s greeted by Amanda and her smug grin. He just rolls his eyes. “Yeah. I know. Sorry.”

“Sorry?” Amanda tilts her head at him in confusion. “Sorry for what?”

“I dunno.” Sonny shrugs. “We swore we weren’t gonna be so...obvious. At work.”

“Sonny.” Amanda reaches across their desks to hold his hand and looks him dead in the eye. “You have literally. Always. Been obvious.”

“That’s true,” Fin adds.

Sonny shakes his head at himself and glances down at his ring. He can’t believe he hadn’t noticed it was missing. He loves wearing Rafael’s ring. He realizes a moment later how he must look now, staring at his ring, all wistful and sappy. It’s a look he’s been wearing a lot since he started seeing Rafael. He thinks that maybe even without the ring, somehow his relationship would still be showing all over his face. He’s in love. A deep, anchoring sort of love, and he doesn't think it’s a thing he can take off and put back on at will anymore. If, indeed, it ever was.

“Alright,” he says to Amanda. “I see what you mean.”


End file.
